---
title: "Accessibility Checker Rule Help: WCAG20_Table_CapSummRedundant"
---
import "../../../styles/ToolHelp.scss"
import { CodeSnippet, Tag } from "carbon-components-react";

<div className="toolHelp">
<Row>
<Column colLg={16} colMd={8} colSm={4} className="toolHead">

### The table summary duplicates the caption

<div id="locLevel"></div>

The table summary must not duplicate the caption

</Column>
</Row>
<Row>
<Column colLg={11} colMd={5} colSm={4} className="toolMain">

### Why is this important?

Duplicating a table’s caption and its summary description is repetitive and slows productivity for Assistive Technology users. If used, the summary should provide complementary information not already available in the caption.

<div id="locSnippet"></div>

### What to do

  * If the table caption describes the table purpose and structure fully, remove the summary;
  * OR if information beyond the caption is needed, write a summary that describes the table structure without duplicating information in the caption. The summary should be referenced with an `aria-describedby` attribute.  The `summary` attribute is obsolete in HTML5.

  For example:

<CodeSnippet type="multi" light={true}>&lt;p id="table1_summary"&gt;
    The age demographics of each North American country includes age structures from 0-14 years, 15-64 years, and 65 years and older.
&lt;/p&gt;
    
&lt;table aria-describedby="table1_summary"&gt;
    &lt;caption&gt;Age Demographics of North American Countries&lt;/caption&gt;
      . . .
&lt;/table&gt;</CodeSnippet>

</Column>
<Column colLg={5} colMd={3} colSm={4} className="toolLeft">

### About this requirement

[IBM 1.3.1 Info and Relationships](https://www.ibm.com/able/requirements/requirements/#1_3_1)
[WCAG 2.1 technique H73(https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Techniques/html/H73)

### Who does this affect?

* Blind people using screen readers
* People with low vision using screen readers

</Column>
</Row>
</div>

export default ({ children, _frontmatter }) => (<React.Fragment>{children}</React.Fragment>)
